Crypto platform to tokenise multi-billion franchise industry

2018 is a big year for blockchain with no sector exempt from the tidal waves of the fourth revolution where technological innovation reenacts the powerful words of 20th century political economist, Joseph Schumpeter, “creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.”

For years the multi-billion dollar franchise industry has been booming along with the upbeat global economy but its status quo is about to erupt with the entrance of the CryptoFranchise platform.

A 20 year old Spanish company, Nostrum Home Meal with over 130 franchised restaurants in Spain and France, has pioneered how this platform will transform the traditional franchise business model.

Franchising has been based on a marketing concept where a franchiser licenses its know-how, procedures, intellectual property and use of its business model brand and rights to a franchisee.

In return the franchisee will pay fees and agree to comply with obligations in a Franchise Agreement.

But Nostrum Owner Quirze Salomo explains that current management tools, logistics and modus operandi can make it difficult to control giant franchise chains; “it is not easy to avoid disaffection between franchisee and franchisor after several years operating together.

“So, I was committed to find a solution to make the franchisees participate on the success of the brand, no matter where in the world the company is being successful.”

Hence the idea of building an innovative franchise platform, Cryptofranchise, was born to build a tighter and mutually beneficial collaborative system between all parties.

So how will the use of blockchain and tokenisation improve the franchise marketing model?

Salomo says “inside our cryptoeconomy we found a model that we called Cryptofranchise which Nostrum appears to be the first franchise to put in practice.

“The main characteristic of Cryptofranchise is that it allows us to create new relations between franchisors and franchisees that were unthinkable before the cryptocurrency era.”

“While exploring the blockchain and the cryptoworld, we found out that Satoshi Nakamoto was a consumer of Nostrum products, as our ecosystem is perfectly adapted to his invention.

“Blockchain is perfect for us as this technology will completely change our business model as we understand it right now, and we believe that this change can be applied to other franchise businesses.”

The tokenisation of the franchise ecosystem brings the benefits of a stronger community and reduced operating costs over time through decentralisation.

Nostrum plans to use its newly built crypto platform and tokenisation to propel expansion of its chain of restaurants to over 800 in the next five years.

To support this ambitious growth its looking to raise €50 million through token sales.

Jonathan Fry, Chief Executive Officer of Team Blockchain, explains Nostrum is “developing a CryptoFranchise platform which they will then offer to other franchise businesses on a White Label basis to help them expand their franchises and disrupt the franchise market.”

To become one of the first brands in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry to create and use its own cryptocurrency, the MealToken, Nostrum has partnered with Cryptofranchise System AG.

Nostrum is also working with CFS on the development of the Cryptofranchise platform which will be offered to all franchises globally. This blockchain technology-based platform will shake up existing franchise business models.

Companies with a franchise business model will be able to launch an ICO through the Nostrum platform to raise funds and tokenise their business.

“This platform is mutually beneficial for all parties involved.

“Cryptofranchise is addressed to all those companies which operate on a smaller or larger scale, with a business model similar to the franchise and to those companies that offer services of added value for franchises,” Salomo explains.

The private Nostrum-managed blockchain will enable restaurants to buy and sell tokens while Nostrum manages the blockchain to minimise costs and facilitate transactions between Restaurants, Clients and Nostrum.

No party will be able to sell tokens on third party exchanges from their Nostrum App wallets.

This will effectively create added value for the entire franchise network: all franchisees will benefit from the franchisor’s expansion as they’re all part of the same sharing economy.

Thus the relationship between all parties becomes closer, allowing for a stronger brand.

Salomo says “the development plans including the tokenisation on the blockchain of the company’s ecosystem will revolutionise the QSR sector and evolve the franchise model.

“Our tokenomics have 4 four different branches. We are not creating anything from scratch, as we have already successfully put in place most part of our tokenomics such as the point system for our Fan’s Club members or our delivery system, that was implemented in Spain in 2016.”

The Cryptofranchise platform creates a unique collaborative system that can be adopted by any franchise business model.

Nostrum will use a utility token, MealToken, that grants access to some Nostrum services and acts as a reward and incentive instrument with a payment function that’s within and limited to the Nostrum tokenised ecosystem.

Nostrum’s current MealToken public sale has an upper cap of €50 million, it’s making acquisitions available in Ethereum, Bitcoins, and fiat.

“The road to follow right now is to launch the Mealtoken ICO, in order to deploy all the resources to Home Meal Replacement.

“At the same time during 2018 the Cryptofranchise platform will be developed so that Nostrum can be the first to implement it,” says Salomo.

“We will invest part of the capital raised during the ICO to support the Cryptofranchise Platform. This platform will enable other brands to create their own cryptocurrency.”

The innovative franchise says the MealToken is the first cryptocurrency to be issued on the platform, but plans are in the pipeline for many more to come from the retail sector.

The collaborative cryptoplatform system can be adopted by any food service operator, anywhere in the world, and especially by those using the franchise model.

“It will all be based on blockchain and it will offer specific solutions for this sector while using the Cryptofranchise model.

“Interested investors can participate on our project by buying tokens on the public sale that will be out on the next few weeks or participating in our private sale with a 20% discount on the token price, all the information is on our website: www.mealtoken.io,” he adds.

Nostrum’s MealToken cryptocurrency and cryptofranchise platform is among the forerunners of the upcoming large-scale disruption of the franchise industry through blockchain.

It’s a giant sector that has grown for eight years running, according to the International Franchise Association’s 2018 Franchise Business Outlook.

But no market player can safely continue to operate with the tools of yesterday in this milestone age of business disruption as blockchain and the token economy rewrite what is possible.

The repercussions of the cryptoplatform’s entrance into the market will echo across the globe: in 2016 in the U.S. there were over 10,000 brands franchising their business, China boasted over 4,000 such brands, and Brazil 3,000.

And these are just a few of the thousands of global franchises that are likely to follow in the footsteps of the blockchain innovators, enticed by prospects of reducing costs while building a stronger community and sharing economy.

Time moves in fast-forward in this era of unprecedented technological opportunity.

And while the Cryptofranchise platform now lies on the cutting edge of innovation, in the following weeks and months it’s likely to become common place throughout the far corners of the globe.